If the City’s fancy valuations really can be made to stick, now might be as good a moment as any to float Whether you would want to invest is another matter.. Though the pay channels will continue to grow – if only because of the growth of cable – the level of churn makes it impossible to assess at what rate. In the seven months he was there, Mr MacKenzie appears to have done nothing to enhance the position of the free channels, Sky One and Sky News. Recent figures suggest that audiences are in decline across the board. BSkyB may be out of the woods financially, but it has yet to prove itself in the ratings.

It might be better to float off an interest now than be forced into it later.The commercial case too looks a strong one. Any incoming Labour government, however modernist in its approach, is going to wreak bloody revenge on Mr Murdoch; his present dominant and privileged position in the British media will not be left untouched. But as many seasoned City observers are pointing out, there is a quite compelling case for it from Mr Murdoch’s point of view. Mr Murdoch and the other shareholders have yet to broach the subject publicly. Smith New Court, at around pounds 2bn, seems to be about the lowest, and can as a consequence kiss goodbye to any possibility of participation.
For the moment the idea of a BSkyB float owes more to wishful thinking by fee-hungry investment bankers than anything else. One house, which will be spared the embarrassment of being named, has pencilled in an unbelievable pounds 6bn.

Getting an audience appears to be only half the game; coming up with the most flattering valuation is the other. But then they would, wouldn’t they?

There is barely a securities house in town that is not doggedly trying to woo Rupert Murdoch for the flotation of BSkyB. As long as the subscriptions keep rolling in, the odd casualty along the way, however headline-grabbing, makes little difference, most of them were saying. Certainly BSkyB’s fortunes, which most analysts regard as rosy, are not perceived to have changed at all.

All it proved was that tabloid newspaper editors and television don’t mix, was the view. What does Kelvin MacKenzie’s resignation as managing director of BSkyB mean for the future of Britain’s premier satellite TV company? Not very much, was the general view yesterday among media analysts, who took the explanation of a personality clash with Sam Chisholm, the chief executive, at face value. Glaxo, Wellcome and Zeneca, all of which have yet to do anything, are certainly hoping so.. The laurels in the Nineties may yet go to those that stay their hand. SmithKline Beecham, in a copycat move, paid dollars 2bn for Diversified Pharmaceutical Services and Eli Lilly recently beat Glaxo to the post with PCS.Just as Glaxo was thwarted over PCS so SKB has been shut out of an attempt to swap its vaccine and animal health busineses for Cyanamid’s pharmaceutical and healthcare products by a block-busting dollars 8.5bn bid for Cyanamid by American Health Products.The monster merger mania of the late Eighties, which created companies like AHP and SKB, hardly prepared them better for the present turbulence than those that stuck to their knitting.